


Bright Lights and Cityscapes

by colls



Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-22
Updated: 2014-04-22
Packaged: 2018-01-20 09:50:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1506095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colls/pseuds/colls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stranded and lost, three people build a new life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bright Lights and Cityscapes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LePeru (Nizah)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nizah/gifts).



It was supposed to be a routine mission. Less than that, really. More of a consultation with perhaps a day or two spent taking in the sights. Not any sort of formal mission. 

The people who inhabited planet Laskaris IV, known as Laskarids, were friendly and diplomacy had long been established. Hoshi was to meet with one of their linguists while the _Enterprise_ was in a neighboring system. Travis drew the short straw and was assigned to ferry her via shuttle to their capital city. She wasn’t really sure why Lieutenant Reed was along. 

The shuttle ride from the outer system to planetary orbit was uneventful. Travis was unusually quiet, barely responding to Hoshi’s overtures of conversation until she began to talk about the city. He launched into a poetic diatribe about how beautiful ground lights were from space, how they’d reveal themselves in patterns and colors as you piloted through atmosphere. He said every planet was different, but the lights always danced the same dance. He claimed that had the Lieutenant not been along, he would have altered his flight path to see the city lights.

Lieutenant Reed was never one for small talk and didn’t join in their exchange. Soon the conversation lagged, and Hoshi spent the rest of the journey watching the horizon softly sway from a starry expanse to the golden and mauve tones of the Laskaris sky. 

As they descended into the atmosphere, the shuttle jerked violently. Alarms sounded as Travis’ hands flew across the controls. As suddenly as the turbulence had come, their flight smoothed out. 

Travis continued to stare at the controls, not understanding what had happened.

“Ensign,” Reed said, “please tell me you can turn off those bloody alarms.”

“Yes, sir.” His hands danced across the controls again and the alarms were silenced.

“That wasn’t a malfunction with our shuttle, was it?” Reed asked.

“I’m not sure what it was, sir. It doesn’t seem to be a weather event but sensor readings are…. off.” 

Reed leaned over his shoulder to peer at the console. After muttering a few expletives under his breath, he leaned back and jabbed at his own console.

“Ensign Sato, contact the capital.”

Hoshi nodded and opened a frequency. As she waited for the administrative offices to answer her hail, she noticed the frequencies were all quiet. There were no planetary communication signals whatsoever. 

“They are not responding, Lieutenant.”

 

They continued on their trajectory towards the capital city. Dropping from the clouds, they discovered not the bustling metropolis nor sprawling communities they had expected. Instead, they encountered pristine wilderness, dense vegetation and a surface teeming with wildlife. 

 

They circled the planet three times but the sensor readings did not change. Finally, they landed in a clearing in a large valley not far from where three rivers met. There was a high ridge to the west and the sun was setting. 

“These are the exact coordinates of the Department of Linguistics at the Laskaris Academy.” Hoshi turned and surveyed their surroundings, expecting skyscrapers and finding trees. 

“There’s nothing here.” Travis said, his voice full of disbelief.

“Right,” Reed said, squaring his shoulders. “Mayweather, you and I will go back over the sensor logs for the event we encountered entering atmosphere. Ensign Sato, you will send a communique to the _Enterprise_ and apprise them of our situation.” 

“They’ll be out of range for three days,” Hoshi reminded him. 

Reed raised an eyebrow.

“They’ll be out of range for three days, sir,” she amended, “but I will send a communique.”

Reed nodded. Hoshi frowned at his turned back, following Travis back into the shuttle.

 

After four days of waiting and getting no response from the _Enterprise_ , they powered up the shuttle intending to disembark from Laskaris IV. They encountered the same turbulence at the edge of the atmosphere, this time it damaged one of the nacelles. 

They limped back to the clearing, crashed more than landed, and damaged a pod of emergency supplies in the process. They all bore scrapes and bruises, so no one noticed that the landing had damaged Reed as well. Not until a few weeks later when he was still having dizzy spells. Hoshi and Travis argued about the tricorder readings, one claiming it was an inner ear imbalance combined with a torn retina while the other swore Reed had a blot clot in his brain.

“Oh just give me the bloody thing!” Reed shouted, yanking the tricorder out of Hoshi’s hands and trying to focus on the small screen. “Neither of you have a fecking clue what you’re doing, do you?”

Whatever Reed’s malady, they certainly didn’t have the equipment to fix it. It took a few weeks for him to joke about it - a weapons officer who couldn’t shoot straight. 

A week after that, they began searching for a more permanent camp site. One with easy access to both water and natural shelter. The seasons would be changing soon, and they’d need to be prepared. 

Their first location was in the migratory path of one of the few predators on Laskaris IV. Travis liked to claim that the creature had caught them off guard. The truth was that the animal was large, loud and smelled very, very bad. They’d simply sat in stunned silence as it entered the cave and attacked Travis. Hoshi bashed it’s skull in with a rock, but not before it gnawed on Travis and swiped at Reed. Hoshi herself had a gash on her side from one of its claws. Between the three of them, they used up the last of the antibiotics. Travis still contracted a fever and Hoshi worried about tetanus and rabies and things that probably didn’t even exist on this planet. 

They settled near the high ridge to the west of the city. They still called it the city, even though there was nothing there. 

 

“How come you know so much about living off the land?” Travis asked one day as Reed was showing him how to make an awning for their lean-to that wouldn’t leak when it rained. They had built one for quick shelter and now they were building the first of three planned huts. They argued where they’d be positioned, who’d get the first one, if the door should open to the south or the east. They never argued about whether they thought they needed to plan for the long term. 

“Eagle Scout,” Reed replied.

 

Reed built things, or showed Travis how to build things, but Hoshi was the most proficient hunter of the three of them. Using a crude bow and arrow that Reed had fashioned she practiced tirelessly for days. She never really got over being squeamish about killing something that looked like a family pet, but hunger does things to a person, she told herself. She could probably have held out a bit longer if it had just been herself, but seeing Travis and Reed hungry broke her resolve. Travis pretended he didn’t see her cry when she brought down the first one. Hoshi pretended she didn’t see him do the same after butchering it and setting it over the fire. 

The three of them slept well that night, curled up in a heap of tangled limbs. Warm and satiated for the first time in weeks.

They never got around to building a second shelter, or a third. After a while the lack of personal space became natural.

 

It was during the second rainy season that they decided to have Christmas. Travis attempted to make a dessert with nuts and something that resembled figs while Hoshi made party hats out of leaves and feathers They both tried to convince Reed to make some decorations.

“It’s not anywhere near December,” Reed complained. 

“Does that really matter?” Hoshi asked. 

“I would kill for some egg nog,” Travis interjected.

Reed was frowning.

“Do you have something against egg nog?” Travis asked.

“It’s not December…. I think.” He looked to Travis and then to Hoshi. “What month is it?”

They had been making the trek to the shuttle less often these days. It only took a couple hours to get there and back, but it seemed less and less important as the days rolled by. 

The next morning when they arrived at the shuttle and checked the chronometer they discovered they’d been on Laskaris IV for a little over three years. Long enough to learn the seasons, learn a few things they could cultivate and plant for food. Learn to forget that there was any life other than the one here.

 

One night, Hoshi dreamed that she became pregnant. In her dream, she miscarried and Travis held her as she wept while Reed grieved on his own. Fear gripped her. Fear of bearing a child under these conditions, fear of a child growing up alone, fear of childbirth, fear of dying, fear of growing old, fear of never having children. Fear swirled black and thick around her and choked the air. 

Angry at both men over her dream, she left their bed and slept in the old lean-to next to the shelter. She slept there for a week until she could no longer stand lying alone listening to the sounds of lovemaking. The soft moans were too familiar and made her bed outside feel cold.

“The lean-to has a draft,” she murmured as she slid back into bed. 

“I told you we could entice her back,” Travis said, “and no begging involved.”

“You were prepared to beg?” Hoshi asked.

“Reed was.” 

Reed gently pulled Hoshi’s shirt off and his mouth found her breast. Begging didn’t always require words.

 

They were entering the dry season when mushrooms became scarce. Travis lamented over the final dish of mushroom barley soup they’d enjoy until next year. He’d become quite the chef, creating culinary creations from strange vegetation. Having only the tricorder to say whether something was poisonous or not didn’t mean something that looked like barley would taste like barley, but Travis had a knack. 

After dinner Travis and Reed were discussing the best way to ferment berries and Hoshi was sitting on the ground staring off towards the city, imagining the taste of a sweet berry wine. 

She saw a light in the distance. At first she thought it an illusion. A trick of light, a spark from the fire. She blinked and more lights slowly came into view. An entire city emerged.

The three of them stared at the altered landscape. The moment stretched as the lively city bustled all around them. They had somehow caught up with the rest of time.

“Well, I suppose we should check in,” said Reed after a pause. From his tone, Hoshi sensed a hint of disappointment.

 

~end


End file.
